Thursday, 13 May 2010

Last week Heavenly Cakes burst onto the ChocolateMission scene with their Millionaire Shortbread scoring an outstanding (and very well deserved!!) 9.1 out of 10 on the scoring system (See HERE). Every day after treating my fellow co-workers to those Shortbreads, they were consistenly nagging me about when I would be next bringing in something from the Heavenly Cakes website. Well they didn't have to wait that long, as earlier this week Nigel & Maeve sent along some 'all butter flapjacks covered with real Belgian milk chocolate'. Once again, these had stiff competition to live up to in the form of the form of Thornton's Mini Caramel Flapjacks - read on to find out if Heavenly Cakes could triumph for a second time!

After receiving almost god like status in my office for bringing in last weeks Millionaire Shortbread (I have never been made so many cups of coffee in my life!), there was no way that I wasn't going to share the 550.0g gift pack of Chocolate Flapjack. As per last weeks review the flapjack slices came presented in much the same manner in the sky blue and pink trimmed boxes, and were contained within a deep-fill silver foil tray. When cut into, the flapjacks revealed themselves to be not quite on the same level of foodpornography as the Millionaire Shortbreads, but the chocolate layer was similarly exceedingly thick and still got many positive comments from my colleagues.

Resisting the urge to bite into my flapjack slice straight away, I first took note of the smells being offered. The aromas I detected were mostly sweet and chocolaty, though there were hints of baked oat biscuits which obviously made sense given the constituents of the base. Having chilled these flapjacks in the fridge for a few hours before eating (highly recommend you do this!), the chocolate seemed a little firmer to the bite than I experienced last week, though it still melted with the same wonderful smooth soft feel once warmed. The more I experience the Heavenly Cakes Belgian chocolate, the more I am coming round to thinking that it is a bit of a half way house between Galaxy and Lindt milk chocolate. It's delicious taste isn't as cream focused as Galaxy, and not as cocoa based as Lindt. It's one self defining attribute is it's very forthcoming vanilla noted finish, which nicely round off the latter stages of the melt with each bite. Sitting below the plentiful chocolate, the flapjack layer was just as plentifully portioned, and was equally just as tasty. The overriding flavours that came out of the viscous, chewy texture were butter, golden syrup and brown sugar. When eaten in large slices the taste of the flapjack base was a little one dimensional, however these were best eaten in smaller bites anyway as the taste was incredibly rich.

Overall these Heavenly Cakes Chocolate Flapjacks didn't quite reach the same levels on the scoring chart as the Millionaire Shortbreads did last week, though they still went down very well amongst both myself and the ten co-workers I sampled them with. As chocolate flapjacks go these were very good and the quality of the freshly made chocolate and oat and golden syrup fused bases shown through and made for both flavoursome and satisfying flapjack slices. In terms of whether they were nicer than the Thorntons Mini Caramel Flapjacks, me and my fellow taste testers were split down the middle. Personally I think that the Thorntons ones, which use caramel to the fuse the oats rather than golden syrup, offer just a little bit more in terms of flavour in their bases. On the contrary some of my colleagues argued the case that they proffered the nicer, thicker chocolate used on these Heavenly Cakes flapjacks - it really is just a matter of opinion. If we forget comparisons for just one minute and look at the facts, these were some delicious tasting flapjacks, which were highly thought of amongst all eleven people that tried them. I can't see myself buying them instead of the Millionaire Shortbreads, but flapjack fans should sit up and take note of these.